While many developers and studio executives issue simple ‘no comment’ statements when probed or prodded about any aspect of what they’ve got brewing, others like Will Wright and Peter Molyneux are always more than happy to discuss their games, even if only in vague promises of great potential.

IGN sat down with Molyneux at the Game Developers Conference and got his tongue wagging regarding Fable II. Since the game’s release Lionhead has released a single downloadable content pack, which was heavy on new items and short on actual gameplay time. Some of that Molyneux attributes to the fact that work was started on it immediately after the game’s release which meant that they were splitting their focus between Knothole Glade and patching any issues with the game itself.

Now that whatever the biggest issues are with Fable II have been ironed out and Lionhead is free to pursue other projects. Rumors have been circulating that Fable III is already in production and while Molyenux said nothing to confirm that, many things he said confirmed that they’re planning on it. The end of Fable II leaves plenty of loose threads and some of these will be wrapped up in the new premium content pack that will be released this spring.

It’s titled See The Future and it will give some hints at the future of the Fable story. This isn’t an official announcement but Molyneux says they’re not done with Fable II yet and to expect more content. This pack set to add more to the game and not only more clothes or weapons. It’s said to add entirely new gameplay features, new things to do and ‘new challenges’.

ESA seems to be on a roll these days. The organization has added another member to its roster: publisher 505 Games, known for titles such as Hotel for Dogs, Championship Foosball and the Armored Core series.

This brings the total member count in ESA to 23. Earlier this year the ESA added Natsume and SouthPeak, both which will be present at this years E3. 505 Games, however, will not be appearing at the show.

World’s largest (by far) game retailer, GameStop, has posted an annual revenue of $8.8 billion, while profits were almost $400 million — a 33% increase compared to last year. This is the 8th year in a row that GameStop has posted both revenue and profit growth.

A big part of GameStop’s profits came from used game sales; while used games sales accounted for only 23% of revenue, they accounted for over 43% of the profits. GameStop expects 2009 to be another record year, although they expect the growth to slow down.

Rock Band has surpassed quite a milestone, the game franchise has sold for over $1 billion in North America since its release in 2007, according to NPD (who else?). The $1 billion number is for retail only, and excludes DLC. NPD also revealed that GH has sold over 40 million tracks from the Guitar Hero store as well.

Rock Band’s main competitor, Guitar Hero, has already surpassed the 1 billion mark — a feat which it accomplished over a year ago.

Valve’s co-op survival horror action shooter has sold 2.5 million units at retail, project lead Michael Booth revealed today at GDC.

The sales come from both PC and Xbox 360 sales at retail, but not from Steam. Considering the popularity of Left 4 Dead on Steam, it’s fair to assume that the game has sold 3 million copies in total, making it one of Valve’s best sellers, only surpassed by Half Life and Half Life 2.

So the other day, I managed to get a hold of the latest Tom Clancy licensed property, HAWX.  And frankly, I’ve become convinced that they would slap this guy’s name on any thing if they thought it would turn a buck.

Because you see, HAWX is not the standard sort of Tom Clancy game, in that you don’t wander around and shoot things.  No, nothing so pedestrian for HAWX– this time around you get to take control of heavily armed aircraft against ridiculously overmatching forces.

The plot is fairly standard for anything with the Tom Clancy name on it in that it has to do with armies.  Specifically in this case armies of mercenaries which are now referred to as PMCs, or private military companies.  PMCs seemed to be above the law, operating on what amounts to be a supranational level and accountable to no one save the country that’s signing their checks this week.  In something of a rare departure for the Tom Clancy line of products, at one point the company you work for will actually be sent to attack targets in the continental United States.  It’s interesting to consider the kind of geopolitical dynamics that would make private military corporations a more viable alternative than state-sponsored military organizations, but all we’ll get to do is fly a plane real fast and make things go boom.

And of course it’s not a Tom Clancy game unless somebody makes a rough friends to Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, so Ghost leader Scott Mitchell will make an appearance in a couple missions.

It’s the somewhat limited nature of HAWX that at once works for and against it.  Your role is largely limited to flying a plane, and that’s the kind of thing we were doing back in the 80s with significantly less powered systems.  Aside from vast improvements in graphics there is not a whole a lot of functional difference between HAWX and, say, After Burner.  In fact even the engines look similar with your camera located behind the plane as you fly into danger to attack the legions of enemies that will be thrown at you.  And when I say legions, I mean legions–I personally took out something like twenty targets in the first stage alone and still had to repeat it a couple times because I hadn’t taken out quite enough.  They’re really stacking the deck against you on this one; seriously, you’re going to be busier than a one armed paperhanger, trying to keep up with the sheer number of targets that are all firing at your objective all at once.

It’s not that the experience isn’t fun– indeed they’ve done an excellent job of capturing the feeling of rocketing over a field at extreme rates of speed loaded with large quantities of explosives, but my primary problem is that this is most of what you do.  Yes, you get different planes, and you get different weapons, and you get different missions…but it all boils down to is that you are flying a plane and making stuff go boom.

Over and over and over again.

If you’re looking for a good beer-and-pretzels flight sim, then you could do vastly worse than HAWX.  Otherwise, leave this one in the hangar and save yourself a lot of hassle.

If you happen to be looking for a frantic, fast shooter with lots of different powerups and hordes of things flying at you in desperate need of blasting, then what you need is to get over to BubbleBox and try a round of Luminara.

Basically, it’s Geometry Wars, if Geometry Wars were a heavy drug user and paranoid to boot, because everything around you in Luminara is out to get you.  For what reason, we don’t know, so we can once again insert one.  This time, I think your little ball with a stick gun was a rogue enforcer for the Random Shape Drug Mafia, and once they discovered he’d been skimming product, they sent every triggerman they could find to get him.  Of course, being as gifted a shot as our little enforcer is, he won’t go down quietly.  I made it through twenty six rounds of fighting my first time through, so you know there’s lots of things out to kill you.

It’s fun, and a great little casual game that’ll keep your attention riveted for a couple minutes at a stretch.  And isn’t that the point of all casual games, in the end?

Nintendo Announces New Wii Storage Solution and Zelda Game
Tales of Valor Gone Gold
Ratchet & Clank Sequel Announced
Blizzard in Talks With Microsoft Over Next Xbox
The Sims 3 to Feature Simple DRM
Ubisoft Brings Wares to Good Old Games
The Search For Duke Begins
The Pitt Back Up
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 release date announced, website launched
Fallout 3 Wins Game of the Year Award

As a part of Ubisoft’s week-long offers, you can now get Far Cry 2 on Steam for a mere $15 bucks. The offer is available for the next 24 hours only, so hurry up if you want some African open-world action.

But true to Steam history, Europeans are getting screwed once again, as the title retails for 25 Euros, which is nearly twice the price of the US version.

More Far Cry 2 info on Steam here.

Nintendo has announced a couple of new offerings that many gamers will surely find interesting. On one hand is that announcement of the new Wii Storage Solution. Video game developers now have expanded opportunities given that worldwide shipments for the Wii system surpassed 50 million units and worldwide shipments for the Nintendo DS franchise are at more than 100 million units.

The new The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks game that will utilize the intuitive touch control of Phantom Hourglass in an all new adventure that will please longtime Zelda fans while keeping the game accessible to all DS owners. The concept behind this Zelda game includes utilizing a steam locomotive to travel around the world, switching Phantom and Link to explore the dungeons, and solving puzzles using new items.

(Source) Press